Forevermore (7 page)

Eden relaxed and sat back down. “Like a sitter or something?”

I shook my head and frowned again. I hated telling people I was in foster care. Kids really didn’t get it. “I stay with her.”

“Hi, Olivia. You got out early, huh?” M stopped in front of me. She smiled at Eden. “Hello, I’m M.”

Eden brightened and waved. “Hi, I’m Eden.”

“Nice to meet you, Eden. How long for Caleb and Hank?” M looked at her watch. She knew exactly when they’d be out of class, but she needed something to talk about. She didn’t talk much either.

“A couple minutes.”

“Are they your brothers?” Eden asked me. “I’ve got three. They’re all in high school. I was the big surprise.”

M chuckled. “Do you need a ride home, Eden?”

“No thanks. My dad’s coming by to take me to his jobsite today. He’s a plumber. I’m helping him for the rest of the school year because my brothers are all freaking out about their finals right now.”

“That’s a skill that will always come in handy,” M commented as she watched the doors on the middle school across the street open and a stream of kids flow out.

It got a lot louder. M and I usually just waited quietly until Caleb and Hank found us, but today, Eden chattered on. It was kind of a fun change.

“Hey,” Caleb called out. Hank waved his hello.

“Hi, guys,” M said and signed at the same time. She was as good at signing as Hank was. She’d been teaching me since I came to live with them because Hank was always over at the house. The weirdest thing was, sometimes I thought it was easier to speak in sign language than it was out loud. “Do you know Eden?”

“Hey, Eden,” they both said because they were real friendly like that.

Eden chatted to them as easily as she would her own brothers. M watched us closely. She’d noticed it, too, but she noticed everything.

“You guys should take off before the parking lot gets too crowded to get out of here,” Eden told M.

“We’re in no hurry, are we, guys?” M asked.

In response, Hank and Caleb dropped onto the grass next to us, ready to stay as long as necessary. I didn’t want to leave Eden alone with Krystal and her gang still hanging around. M wasn’t about to leave her alone either. Not that she knew about Krystal, but M was super protective.

“Cool.” Eden settled back beside me on the wall. “Hey, you didn’t say. Are these guys your brothers?” Her fingers waved at Caleb and Hank.

My shoulders dropped. I’d have to tell her.

“I am,” Caleb said and smacked Hank. “He might as well be.”

“Yep,” Hank added.

I was too shocked to speak. I guess Caleb must be getting tired of explaining who I was to his friends. I looked up at M, expecting to see her shock. Instead, she was smiling and acting like what he said was perfectly fine. I’d lived in some homes where the foster parents insisted we call them Mom and Dad and all the other kids our brothers and sisters, but M and Briony never made me do that.

“Cool.” Eden accepted it easily. “You have any sisters?”

I shook my head. I didn’t have any brothers either, but it was nice that Caleb thought I was kinda like a sister. He treated me better than a sister, or at least the way I’d seen brothers in other homes treat their sisters.

“Me, neither, but I always get my own room. Two of my brothers share at home and all three have to share at my mom’s. Makes them so mad.” She started laughing like it was fun to make her brothers mad.

“Nice,” Caleb reached back for a high five from her.

“There’s my dad.” Eden pointed to the pickup pulling into the parking lot. She sprang off the wall ready to race over to him. “Nice meeting ya. See you Monday, Olivia.”

“Bye,” I called as she sprinted off to his truck.

“She’s cool,” Hank signed to me, and Caleb nodded.

I smiled, wondering if I’d made a real friend. Then I looked at Caleb, wishing for real that he was my brother. The longer I stayed with them, the more I wished for what I thought were impossible things.

9 / OLIVIA

THE CLASS WAS GETTING
loud, but M just kept scribbling on the white board. If this were my class, our teacher would be yelling at us to be quiet. M didn’t teach her classes that way. She let her students speak up, talk to each other during class, and encouraged discussion when she was teaching. It wasn’t like our class where Mrs. Lomax talked and we listened. M asked her students questions and let them carry the discussion by themselves if they wanted. If I had a teacher like M, I’d love school.

She turned back from the board, and the students settled down instantly. I didn’t really understand what today’s subject was, but I liked listening. Based on the number of people in M’s classes, she was really popular. Briony teased her about it all the time. Briony’s students really liked her, too, but she never had classes this size.

“What about output efficiency techniques?” M asked to no one in particular. That was another thing that was different from my teacher. Mrs. Lomax would call on someone. If they didn’t know the answer, she wouldn’t just let them off the hook. It could get really embarrassing.

One of the guys in front started talking without raising his hand. M let them get away with it as long as they weren’t interrupting someone else. After he finished talking, M asked the rest of the class if that made sense. That was M’s way of getting the class to tell him he was wrong instead of her telling him outright.

She started up the steps to where I sat at her desk. M moved around a lot in her classroom. She told me it kept people from texting in class or whispering to each other and kept their attention focused. Her desk was up on the third row of the eight rows of seating. I wasn’t sure why she didn’t have her desk down at the front of the room, but it was probably for some really good teaching reason.

A stack of stapled paper sets sat neatly on the corner of her desk. Her eyes landed on them and looked back at me with a smile. She didn’t need to ask, but she whispered, “Would you mind passing these out, please?”

I stood and picked up the stack of papers on her desk. Whenever she needed something handed out, she’d ask me to do it. She thought I got bored just sitting here. Once a month my school had half days, so M would come pick me up and bring me back for her last class. Briony did the same when she was on pickup duty. Hank’s grandmother would pick up the boys at the normal time. I didn’t mind coming back to work with them. Their students were entertaining, and it was neat to see them teach.

Heading up to the top row, I counted out the handouts and gave them to the first girl sitting there. She smiled at me, over smiled, really. Some of M’s students did that with me because they thought they could kiss up to their professor if they were nice to me. They all thought I was M’s kid because she didn’t really tell them who I was when she introduced me the first time.

“Thanks, Olivia,” M said as I got down to the bottom row. “You’ve just been handed a case study on a now defunct manufacturing company. Work in groups of four or five to get this analysis done by next Wednesday. We’ll see where you’re at on Monday. That’s class for today, guys. Be safe out there.”

Half the class bolted for the door, but the rest went to surround M and ask questions. Normally it would only be a few people, but she must have given them something harder today. Since I was done with my homework already, I sat back in M’s desk chair and pulled out a library book to read. It was about a teen who’d been made into a tour guide hologram for Disney World and finds out many of the evil characters are real and trying to break out of Disney to take over the world. Caleb recommended it. He was already on the fourth in the series. I liked the other series he told me to get about triplet decedents of Medusa better, but I finished those. Before M’s house, I never read anything for fun because it was so hard and I didn’t know how to find something good. But trips to the library were a regular occurrence for this family. So was reading a chapter before bed every night. M had shown me some tricks to help me read better, like looking at the first and last letters and length of the word instead of trying to string all the letters together when they seemed to jump around on me. She got me to focus on the pattern of a word, not all the letters and now I always carried a book to read for fun.

“What’re you reading?” one of the guys in the class asked me as he dropped an assignment on M’s desk. I glanced up and showed him the cover of the book. “Read that one. It’s pretty good. You’ll like the ending.”

“Don’t spoil it for her, Joel,” M called out as she waved off the rest of the people surrounding her and made her way up the tiered rows to her desk.

“I wasn’t, Prof,” he protested, holding his hands up. “Just thought she’d like to know that the kid gets—”

“Joel!” M snapped at him.

He started laughing really hard, like getting M to snap at him was his goal. “Just kidding,” he said to me. “Must be fun living with Prof.”

“Get out of here,” M said in a stern tone that wasn’t really all that stern.

He sauntered out just as Briony appeared in the doorway. She looked exhausted as she usually did on Wednesdays when she had department meetings.

“My two favorite people.” Briony walked toward us and gave M a kiss before leaning down to kiss the top of my head. Other foster parents would kiss my cheek or head and all I’d want to do was wipe away the spot. I never felt that way with them.

“How was the meeting?” M asked her.

“Useless, as always. Remind me why I decided to accept a chair position?”

“Because you’re good at it?” I guessed because we all had to be positive for Briony on department meeting days.

“Because you thought it would come with a really nice chair?” M joked and got a smack to the shoulder for it.

Briony slipped her arm around me. “What do you two have planned for your girls’ night? You sure you don’t want to join Lex, Javi, and me?”

“Nope, you have fun with your friends,” M told her. “You don’t get a night out with them alone often, and Liv and I have big plans.”

“What?” Briony’s eyes sparkled with interest.

“You’ll find out.”

I knew it wouldn’t be something that Briony would be mad she missed. That wasn’t how they treated each other. Other families would get into huge fights when one person got to spend a night out and the other one was stuck with the kids. Especially if that person spent all of their money for the week at a bar. Briony wouldn’t do that, and M liked hanging out with Caleb and me as much as her adult friends.

“No secrets now,” Briony goaded, reaching out to tickle M.

“You’ll just have to wait to be jealous of our fun.” M shuffled away from Briony’s fingers.

“I should join your girls’ night.”

“You should, but Alexa won’t let you out and Javier needs you to help rein her in.”

I snickered. Alexa and Javier, two other professors, acted like an old married couple without being a couple. They were funny together and always talked directly to me like the best of Briony and M’s friends. They were like Willa, Quinn, Jessie, and Lauren who didn’t treat me like I was six and a sad little orphan. Or worse like they couldn’t understand why Briony and M would want me to live with them. It wasn’t like their other friends weren’t nice to me. It was just that some of them didn’t understand why someone would foster when they could have their own kids.

“Oh, you think that’s funny, do you, missy?” Briony’s teasing smile turned toward me, her fingers spread out for attack. Tickling was her special torture for Caleb and me.

I ducked behind M, giggling. This no longer reminded me of my mom who used to tickle me. Now I only thought of the times Briony surprised me or Caleb or especially M with her tickle fingers.

“Enough fun, sweetheart.” M pulled her away from me before I started crying from laughing so hard. “You’d better get moving if you don’t want those two tracking you down in the hallways. It’s always so much worse if they have to come find you.”

Briony’s smile went from teasing to tender when she looked into M’s eyes. My stomach got warm tingles whenever I saw proof of how much they loved each other. I’d lived in two homes with single parents and five homes with married people. Briony and M haven’t been married very long, so maybe that’s why they still loved each other. The other couples didn’t even seem to like each other anymore. Some of them thought that fighting was their entertainment for the evening. I’d never heard Briony and M fight. They didn’t agree on everything, but they found a middle ground pretty quickly.

Briony slid her arms around M’s waist. She gave her a another kiss. Caleb sometimes gets embarrassed by any affection they showed, but I didn’t mind.

“I love you,” she whispered then took a step back and looked at me. “I love you, too, sweetie.” She reached an arm over and dragged me into a group hug. “You girls have fun tonight.”

I turned to M and smiled, happier than I’d been in a really long time. We had nights out alone at least once a month. Then Briony would get pretend jealous and make up a reason for us to have a night out alone. They did the same with Caleb, but it always made me feel super special when they’d take me somewhere by myself.

“Are you ready?” M asked me, reaching for her computer bag.

“What are we doing?” I bounced on my toes waiting to hear.

“The community center is sponsoring a cooking class at our favorite Greek restaurant. They’re teaching their secrets to the best gyros, which will make Caleb our grateful servant when we add it to the dinner rotation. What do you think?”

“Ooh, yeah, please. That sounds really fun. Are you sure you’ll like it?” I had to ask because M didn’t cook dinner often. She usually took care of breakfast and made sandwiches for lunch, but unless she was grilling, Briony did most of the dinner cooking.

“Sure, I will. It’ll be fun with you.” She slid an arm around my shoulder and squeezed briefly. She didn’t often show affection like this, but I didn’t ever feel like I missed it. She made sure we all knew how much she cared for us. “Let’s go have some fun.”

I wanted to thank her and call her Mom because this was something only a mother would do for her child, but she hadn’t said I should. Those other families who forced us to call them Mom and Dad did it so we’d feel included. But I always felt like it disrespected my mom. Now that I’d been with Briony and M for eight months, I wanted to call them Mom or Momma or something that signified how much they meant to me. When they did things like this for me, over and above giving me a home, food, and clothing, I wouldn’t feel guilty that I wanted them to be my real parents. My mom wouldn’t mind because they were so good to me and loved me. I was sure she’d be happy about it.